Oi familia e amigos! So today is my P day as you can guess by now. So much has happened these last 7 days that I don't really know where to begin! Thanks to the Peos and Madi for the HUGE box of food and snacks and letters and unicorn drawings! It is slowly getting eaten, and I think that I am going to save that Mt. Dew until the last night that I am here at the CTM. Also thank you to everybody who has deareldered me. It's really awesome to get those and hear how everyone is doing! Haha it has only been a week, but it honestly feels like I have been here at the MTC for a month. Oh and everyone! I am in the actually MTC, NOT the Provo West MTC. So when you dearelder make sure that is what you choose. Also, my estimated departure date is AUG19, NOT AUG20 so make sure that you do that when you dearelder me too.

     My companion's name is Elder Mountain, he is a nice guy and is pretty similar to me in a lot of ways. He is from just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. We get along well and I think we are effective in our teaching together. So a typical day and week here at the MTC goes like this: Wake up at 6, breakfast at 6:30, be in our classroom by 7, and then we learn Portugues and Gospel principles basically until 10, we then have estudo pessoal (personal study) for an hour, then lunch at 11, and then it depends but usually everyday we get another hour of additional study time, an hour of Language time, and an hour of TALL (language study on the computer), dinner is always at 4, we have Gym time for an hour sometime during the day 3 times a week, and then at 6 we start teaching our fake investigator Aquilino. Then lights out at 10:30. It is insane how much we do and how much we are capable of learning in a day. All of this is in Portuguese too. Including the teaching of our investigator. We started teaching him on Friday solamente em Portugues. I'm doing really well in the language. Thank the Lord for all that Spanish and Italian. It's fun to learn because to me it's kind of like redneck Spanish. One of the sisters in my district, Sis. Matheson (the girl that worked at the creamery with me) said the second day about pronouncing it, "If you're doing it with your nose, you're doing it right." It sounds really cool to hear our teacher and other people speak it quickly and I'm getting there fast. I love my district. We bonded really quickly and all 12 of us, 8 elders and 4 sisters, are going to Rio de Janeiro! It's cool to think that I could be companheiros with some of these elders in my district sometime when we get to Rio. Which may be sooner than we had all originally thought. Since we have been here there have been 2 missionaries that have received their visas during their second week I believe and have left today for the Sao Paolo CTM. I still think that I will be getting a reassignment, but from listening to all the Elders that got theirs last week, I am really excited to get mine!

     Funny story! So on Thursday we were supposed to meet with our Branch Presidency at 6 and have interviews and such, and they were going to assign an elder to be the District Leader that night. We had known that they were going to call a DL since that morning and right after I heard that, I just thought to myself, "I'm the District Leader." Sure enough, after the interviews happened, they pulled me out of our classroom and called me. So I was excited, and mostly the only responsibility is getting the mail for the district twice a day, Lunch and Dinner. Just some info, we get handwritten letters at lunch and dearelders at dinner, but we dont get to open them until 9:30. BUT then on Friday during the evening, the Branch Pres. pulled E. Mountain and I out of the classroom and released me as the DL and called us to be the new Zone Leaders! Crazy. We are the leaders of a Zone of all Portuguese speaking missionaries. There are about 80 that we are in charge of. We had a bunch of training meetings on Sunday, but they didn't ever tell us what our responsibilities really were... Haha. It becomes official on this upcoming Sunday when the current ZL's get released and leave the MTC the next day or two. It'll be a challenge, but Í'm excited because it means that every week we will be in charge of introducing and orientating the new missionaries in our zone! It is perfect and exactly what I wanted to do.

     I love being a missionary so far. The days are long and exhausting, but it is definitely worth it. I feel closer to Christ and my Father in Heaven every moment. I am going to try to attach some photos in a few minutes on another computer because the one that I am on isn't letting me. I don't know if I addressed all of your questions, so next time I will be a little bit more prepared hopefully. Oh and Mom and Dad, I sent you a handwritten letter and it got in the mail yesterday, so expect that to come by the end of this week. Tell me when you get it so I have an idea of how long it takes to get there.

Eu sei que esta igreja é verdadeira. Sei que meu Pai Celestial ama-me, e que Ele chama profetas a nos guiar e ensinar. José Smith foi um profeta e Deus e Jesus Cristo aparacem-lhe. O evnagelho de Jesus Cristo é a mais importante coisa em minha vida, e sou muito grato para o oportunidade a ensinar e pregar ele as pessoas de Rio de Janeiro e o mundo. \

There's probably a bunch of spelling mistakes in there, but I believe it.

I love all of you and take care of yourselves while I'm gone. I'll be home before you even know it.

Oh, can you send me madi and ethan's emails? so that i can email them too. Thanks